I secured a summer internship position for a big 4 firm this year, and there is a good chance I will get a job offer (well, hopefully anyway) . However, I just found out that this particular office for this Big 4 firm is recruiting graduates to fill positions in its ‘delivery centre assurance line’ . In other words, even If I did a good job at the internship, the job offer wouldn’t be a conventional practice-based training contract, but one in which I will be part of a delivery centre.

The graduate training contract is ACA, and is based in Ireland. The job requires travel to the mainland (England) Monday-Thursday, and returning to the Irish office on Friday. I’ve spoke with a few accountants and the general consensus seems to be that working as part of a delivery centre isn’t great experience; you would be better working at a smaller firm as it is essentially outsourcing cheap labour to do grunt work elsewhere .

Should I still do the internship? Have I got the wrong idea of delivery centres? I just want progression and to be learning the ‘right stuff’ of auditing- I am pretty certain working as part of a delivery centre will stunt my progress in this regard.

One last question: If I was to do the internship and receive an offer, would it be worth declining the offer, and putting the Big 4 offer/internship on the CV and then leveraging that for other firms (the other big 3, GT/BDO etc).

Firstly, congrats on your internship offer! They are not easy to get, delivery centre or otherwise (internships are generally more competitive than the graduate schemes).

I completed the core assurance graduate scheme in London and have actually worked with a couple of the people from the delivery centre. A couple of points:

You’re right, they do a lot of travelling! However, I should note that they do become a part of the audit team and are treated as such!

Truthfully, if I had a choice I wouldn’t start off in the delivery centre - generally the tasks you do are a little more simplistic/ repetitive and geared around what the audit team needs at that time, so it is harder to get a range of activities and progress in the way you want

Having said that, I know of people that have specialised in particular areas of the audit and progressed very well, as they are so valuable to the different teams

Again you’re correct, it is an outsourcing of cheaper labour BUT you are still part of a Big4 and this is valuable. You get the same access to the different teams and clients and so that is great.

For your last question, if you don’t decide to take the offer - absolutely, it is worth doing the internship and using it as leverage for other graduate schemes. It is still extremely valuable and as mentioned above it is still a competitive process. It proves you were good enough to get in and complete the work.